2018.043 Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends

Wonder Woman: Forgotten Legends
Written by: Kurt Busiek, Lee Marrs, George Perez
Illustrated by: Trina Robbins, Irv Novick, Rick Magyar, Ramona Fradon
DC Comics

2018.010 Astro City: Reflections

I love that the volumes of Astro City seem to alternate between a big story or smaller, individual character pieces.  This volume has three stories to it.  I love reading Astro City because it always feels like a history lesson.  Sometimes we're seeing characters for the first time, but Kurt Busiek makes us feel like we've been reading about them for years.  Sometimes he uses a classic Astro City character and we're just getting yet another chapter in their history.  Sometimes he uses the perspective of a peripheral character to tell the story of a hero we already know.  This series is so smartly produced, I just don't know how he can continue to turn out story after story like this.  I really loved the Samaritan story and especially the Steeljack story in this volume.  The Furst Family story was kind of meh to me.

Astro City: Reflections

Written by: Kurt Busiek

Illustrated by: Brent Anderson, Alex Ross

Vertigo 

117 Supergirl Vol 3: Ghosts Of Krypton

I love Supergirl.  Well, I love Supergirl when she's done right.  This volume, not my favorite.  I wasn't reading the series regularly when these stories were published.  I'm not sure why, but I'm kind of happy I wasn't reading it.  I really didn't enjoy this book.  An awful lot of it is spent on a story where Supergirl tries to find a cure to save a dying boy she "accidentally" promised would be okay.  I do love that Resurrection Man was featured prominently in the story, but even that wasn't enough to save it for me.  Kara spends an awful lot of time brooding about Krypton, too.

I loved the stuff Kelley Puckett did with Batgirl, but not so much with Supergirl.  It just didn't work for me.

Supergirl Vol 3: Ghosts Of Krypton

Writer: Kelley Puckett, Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza, Geoff Johns, James Peaty, Will Pfeifer

Artist: Renato Guedes, Jose Wilson Magalhaes, Drew Johnson, Ray Snyder, Lee Ferguson, Rick Leonardi, Dan Green, Ron Randall, Brad Walker, Jon Sibal, Jesse Delperdang, Rodney Ramos

DC Comics

066 Astro City: Honor Guard

A couple of posts ago, I was complaining that Kurt Busiek, although a solid writer, just doesn't get the Justice League.  Or the DC Universe for that matter.  There's always been something about the stuff he writes for DC that doesn't click for me.  His Marvel work is great and he's so good at what he does, but not when it comes to DC properties.  Astro City is his creator owned book and what he does here makes his Marvel work look like his DC work, if that makes sense.  There's something magical about reading Astro City to me.  It rarely hits a sour note (though there was that maxi-series a few years ago.  The less we talk about it, the better).  He was born to write this book.

Very often in Astro City, Kurt will write a story which involves some sort of flashback.  Sometimes it's a single page showing scenes from previous adventures of the characters.  When you read something like JLA and they do that, you see a panel of them battling Shaggy Man and you remember that story, or they show a panel teaming up with the JSA and it brings you right back to that issue.  When Kurt does that in Astro City, you get the exact same feeling even though what he's flashing back to has never been published before.  Every time I read an issue of Astro City, it feels like a universe I've been heavily invested in since I was ten years old.  How he can manage to do that on a consistent basis is beyond me.

This collection is a little different than the last few.  It's full of one or two part stories that were published in between longer arcs.  Each story is about a different member of the Honor Guard.  You get some decent backstory on some of these characters.  I do love a nice done-in-one tale and these are all solid stories.  Also different about this collection is the stories are all drawn by guest artists.  But that does not detract from any of the stories.

Astro City: Honor Guard

Writer: Kurt Busiek

Artist: Jesus Merino, Joe Infurnari, Gary Chaloner, Tom Grummett, Wade Von Grawbadger, Cory Hamscher, Ferlis Santacruz, Agustin Padilla Bob Wiacek, Andrew Pepoy

Vertigo Comics

063 JLA Vol 9

This book was a real mixed bag for me.  It's the final volume in this era of JLA.  I believe it leads right into Infinite Crisis and then into the Brad Metzler run of JLA.

We have three big stories here.  And I see each of them differently.  One I loved.  One I hated.  One I liked.  The book starts off with the end of Kurt Busiek's run.  I love Busiek.  I think he's a fantastic writer.  His run of Avengers was my favorite run of the book.  Astro City is a book that is amazing to me.  But for some reason, Busiek and the DCU just don't gel together for me.  At all.  I don't know why.  The characters don't seem right to me.  The stories just don't grab my attention.  And this book starts off with a big story.  Nine or ten parts, I think.  It's massive.  And, for me, really hard to get through.  I did not enjoy it then.  I didn't enjoy it now.

The next story was my favorite.  It's a six part arc that sort of served as a sequel to Identity Crisis.  It was the beginning of the end of this era of JLA.  The team was falling apart.  Hard.  The Secret Society was going after the JLA and their loved ones.  Mind wipes were discussed.  It was a big mess for the team.  And although there was one more story arc, for all intents and purposes, the JLA was done.

The last story features the team pretty much packing it in, but before they can officially close this chapter, The Key strikes.

Despite my feeling towards the Busiek story, this is a really good collection of JLA tales from the early 2000s.

JLA Vol 9

Writer: Kurt Busiek, Bob Harras, Allan Heinberg, Geoff Johns

Artist: Chris Batista, Tom Derenick, Ron Garney, Mark Farmer, Dan Green

DC Comics